Page 37 of The Wedding Forecast

I sit next to him, trying to leave some respectable space but he immediately rests his knee against mine. The confidence is galling. Please. I am not that easy. (I am.)

‘So,’ I say.

‘Yes?’

‘About earlier.’

‘Mmmm.’

‘I was feeling a bit emotional.’

‘I know.’

‘I wasn’t’—what did Bianca say to me earlier?—‘I am not normally like that.’

‘I get it.’

‘I wasn’t using you.’

‘It’s okay if you were.’ His knee touching mine is really very distracting.

‘Hooking up with me is easier than putting in the work with the celebrant, right?’ I say, joking, but also, I think that’s probably true.

He doesn’t say anything to that.

‘Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I don’t usually grab random men and kiss them. So I apologise.’

‘Am I a random man?’

‘You’re semi-random.’

He gives a small laugh, a puff of air.

‘Anyway, I’m over it now.’

If he would move his knee, I would feel more sure of this statement. Obviously I could move my knee away from his, but he put his knee there first so the imperative is on him to move it.

‘Plus, Patrick,’ he says.

‘Yes! Patrick,’ I say.

I had forgotten, briefly, about Patrick. My destiny. We’d spoken again before he left the dinner. He said he was looking forward to seeing me tomorrow, and he touched my arm. I was pink-cheeked and smiling at him in a way anyone watching would have interpreted as flirtatious, in a way Patrick must have interpreted as flirtatious, but in reality was a spillover of the bathroom situation with Mac.

‘So, no hard feelings, and we are over it and we don’t need to mention it to anyone at all?’ I say.

‘Sure, if that’s what you want,’ he says.

I want him to take me to his bed.

No, I don’t. Because that’s messy. For me, and everyone here. And Patrick. I could have the beginning of something wonderful, something foreseen by fate, with Patrick tomorrow.

‘That’s what I want,’ I say.

‘Done.’

‘Tomorrow is about Hayley and Luke.’

‘I agree,’ he says.